Since its inception, the concept of "big data" has meant many things to many people. If you are a fan of the Apache Hadoop ecosystem, big data is the raison d'etre for your Hadoop environment and the sprawling zoological lexicon upon which that ecosystem is built and continues to evolve. If you are a devotee of multi-structured data such as JSON, XML, etc, your definition of big data revolves around how relational data management is not well-suited for the modern data architecture of event-based processing and the Internet of Things. And so on and so forth…

As it was explored since the inaugural EMA/9sight survey in 2012, big data is both a way to look at new sources of data and how organizations place that information under "new management." Big data attracted a wide range of application innovators, as well as many protesters against the dominance of relational databases and data warehouses. The EMA/9sight surveys use a deliberately broad definition of big data to inspire end users to think beyond the box of limiting definitions. This will let them see how a larger world of traditional data sources, data management, and processing can be interwoven with the new era. As was established in three (3) previous studies in 2012, 2013, and 2014/2015, big data offers a wide range of possibilities. The 2016 EMA/9sight Big Data End-user Survey continues to look at that range of possibilities for big data definitions, implementations, and technologies.